I doubt it- as I don't use any of the fancy eye-candy stuff. Went to check, but I'm having the problem again...so I can't see anything.

This is getting ridiculous- I feel like I'm back in Windows- spending half of my time doing maintenance and fixing stuff.

I installed the updates...and now I'm screwed. About 2 dozen of them wouldn't install- and when I rebooted my 'puter, everything looks completely different now! Tried to run update manager again, but it couldn't do anything because the previous updates didn't install right and it now says the software index is broken. Ran the terminal command it suggested to fix the problem, and got this notice at the end:

Lesson: NEVER install updates except for specific items/problems!!!

I guess I'll be trying Mint.... as, between the initial problem that prompted me to start this thread, and these new problems now....it's probably easier to just start from scratch than to try and fix all this.

I had hoped that at the very least, I could hang on until 10.10 was released- as, like a previous poster stated, that version would likely have the bugs worked out.

If you deleted Evolution, why is it presenting you with updates? I am beginning to wonder just how Evolution was deleted? Did you use aptitude or synaptic to do so or did you just delete things manually? The latter would be an excellent way to break any system that has a package manager...

Edit: from the above messages, I do get the impression that it is a case of incorrect software management. Just a warning: any system is going to break if you don't follow the rules.

U-10.10 may have the bugs from 10.04 fixed, but there will be a slug of new ones :cry: Ubuntu may not be as bleeding edge as Fedora, but it's apparently out there far enough to to be problematic on occasion. One thing I've learned (but not very well, as I have to relearn it all too often) with both Fedora and Ubuntu, is to apply updates in small batches. Seems like there are fewer failed updates that way, and I know I'm not going to be left with several hundred MB of half-installed packages.

I deleted Evolution through Synaptic. Have to check on the next system I install and see if I can't just keep it from installing all the crap that I don't want/need. (Thought I read somewhere that 10.10 was going to come with Thunderbird and Chromium....it should!)

I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to break the system- as I really don't fool with things- and the problem actually started before I deleted Evolution.

That makes sense to me. Quite frankly, I think I'm better off with my old Windows mentality of "If it ain't broke...don't fix it"- and just skipping the updates unless it's something I know I really need. (Although in this case, it was broke....but now it's even "broker"[sic] :D)

I may just try a fresh install of Ubuntu. What about the Ubuntu recovery mode? Can I do that without losing my data?

First of all, in Synaptic you may have to uninstall Evolution completely, as in the equivalent of 'autoremove --purge' in apt-get. To do that, select "Completely remove including configuration files". See what that does.

Or, do it the traditional way:

Every now and again I get frustrated at having to do something manually in Slackware and I consider installing Ubuntu on one of my machines again....... And then I read a thread like this. LOL. Not a dig at Ubuntu, just a +1 for manual configuration, updates, etc. At least I have a pretty good idea of what went wrong when it breaks and it's usually my own fault anyway.

Oy! Just tried that- and I now get a message saying "Dpkg was interrupted....need to manually configure...." -which is what I tried to do before, which generated the error message I had posted. I think I'm screwed- that update attempt really ruined everything.

You should see what happened: It even changed my fonts....the color of my toolbars; my icons- it removed the majority of themes from the appearance
folder, and broke it, so that I can't go back to the look I had before....

It's a mess.....


I wish I had the know-how.....as that's the way I like it- for the same reason I prefer a manual transmission in a car (If you could do everything via GUI, it'd be great- but I assume it's all CLI?)

+1 on the manual transmission. Same goes for manual windows and locks too.

As far as Slackware goes..........
It's some CLI, some editing of text files, some GUI. It's not as bad as a lot of people make it sound, but it does take some effort up front. On the plus side, config files are usually more intuitive than the GUI if you have access to google, and troubleshooting is more straightforward when you are used to reading the files and on the stability front, there just aren't many updates in the stable branch anyway and it's a manual exercise in the first place so your system doesn't really break itself. Slackware is one of those things that when you are getting used to it seems entirely backwards, but one day you realize it makes perfect sense and most everything else seems rather awkward. It took me about a month before I formatted all my disks and went full time slack, although from time to time I do install something that sounds interesting on a spare partition.

Slackware does have an extremely helpful community, and lots of tutorials for new Slackers. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people just dying to reveal their inner-geek!;)

Right, if anything works it should be this: sudo fsck -a, let it do its work, then reboot.

Btw, if you removed evolution, di you remove evolution-data-server, too? It has a hook in quite a few parts of gnome (including gnome-panel); remove it and you break lots of dependencies (then again, you'd get a warning in red if you tried - but the system could never prevent you from doing it anyway).

You're really tempting me to give Slack a try.....

As long as there are people out there willing to help and capable of dumbing it down for a beginner like me, what would I have to lose? (Except perhaps my sanity)

As long as I can figure out/be told what to do, I don't mind editing files...in fact, from the little I have done...I like it! Simple...direct...and you can always undo it!

I'll look that one up in man, and then give it a try....

Thanks.

Ooooo-K...just tried the fsck and received this:

"The file system is mounted. If you continue you WILL cause severe damage..."

Seems EVERYTHING I try to do through the terminal either encounters an error or something like this- sheesh- this is worse than having a virus!

My mistake. I should have specified you were supposed to do that from a livecd. fsck accesses your drive as a raw device, which can lead to a mess on a partition that is still mounted.

As a quick alternative, do this:
sudo touch /forcefsck
and reboot. This will force a full file system check when the system is booting up again.

O-K...just tried that- it took about 3 seconds for it to check the disk...then it booted up.....

Apparently...no new info there.....

Good. Have you tried the update again in the meantime? Still the same error?

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!!!!!!! [5 bells] You da man!!

I was able to do a partial upgrade.......and after rebooting, the system looks to be back to normal! The proper icons and fonts, etc. are back, and all the new problems caused by trying to update seem to be resolved!

And I was just about to give up!

You're a genius!

I have a feeling that I'm at least back to square one, with just the initial problem (the original subject of this thread) to deal with.

As for that: What will happen if I try booting into the "recovery" mode at the grub menu? Could that be a way to possibly restore/fix whatever is causing my initial problem, without losing my data???

Thank you so much for getting me back to at least where i was when I started this thread-

And thanks to everyone else for all the advice and help. (And I WILL try and keep up-to-date on the updates)

One other question: If I install all the updates, is that the same as upgrading to 10.10?

(Sorry for the never-ending questions- but I like to pick the brains of knowledgable people- even though I realize that this simplistic newbie stuff must be a bore to you all- Thanks for putting up with me!)